The Forgotten Man
Graham argued that in his day, politics was being subverted by those proposing "measure of relief for the evils which have caught public attention." He wrote,
As soon as A observes something which seems to him wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or, in better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X... What I want to do is to look up C... I call him the forgotten man... He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, the social speculator, and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him. —Summer, p.466 of The Forgotten Man and Other EssaysRead more about this topic: William Graham Sumner
Famous quotes containing the word forgotten:
“He appeared to be a very religious man, and said his prayers in a loud voice, in Indian, kneeling before the camp, morning and evening,—sometimes scrambling up again in haste when he had forgotten this, and saying them with great rapidity. In the course of the day, he remarked, not very originally, “Poor man rememberum God more than rich.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)